Retrieval of compatible component information for system design

Abstract

Selection of individual engineering components is a time consuming and labour intensive task. Rapid access to a range of possible components is difficult as manufacturer's catalogues must be obtained and interrogated to find a suitable item. Making comparisons between components from different suppliers is difficult because the components tend to be defined in different ways. These problems are compounded as individual components are assembled into systems and the matching process is carried out. Thus, the selection process could be made more efficient by being able to rapidly access component data. If the selection and retrieval process was structured so that data defining a particular type of component was presented in a useful and consistent way, comparisons could be made between different products. If this idea is applied not only within component groups but also between component groups, the compatibility or matching process of components would also benefit. The focus of the research was to identify sets of characteristics that describe rotary mechanical power transmission components in a way that was familiar to designers and also suitable for a computer aided retrieval. As well as carefully studying the components and selection procedures, the novel approach of considering analogous components was used. This caused the number of potential retrieval characteristics to be increased thereby making the research very thorough. The characteristics highlighted by analogy often proved to be important for selection. By careful consideration of component function, the exhaustive lists of selection characteristics were reduced to concise lists of user friendly, discrete criteria suitable for a computer based retrieval system. Analogies helped to determine the relative importance of each characteristic throughout this process. The concise characteristic lists were then used as the basis of the record format for a commercial database management system. A bespoke user interface with the novel feature of'picture prompts' was written. The demonstration system, christened 'R.O.C.C.I.' was given field trials. The results of the field trials were favourable as users were able to quickly select components that met their needs. However financing the data capture has not allowed the project to be further developed.

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